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The talk is divided into two parts. In part one, we discuss universal aspects of quantum dynamics present in driven open many-particle systems. Oftentimes, driven systems show full decoherence at large wavelength, but we present two situations which do not follow this generic pattern. The first concerns the critical dynamics in a driven open system with a dark state realizable in microcavity arrays, and the other one an ensemble of Rydberg atoms, in which coherent quantum dynamics leads to a variant of a non-equilibrium absorbing state transition without direct classical counterpart. In part two, we discuss, in a number conserving framework, an exactly solvable model of interacting fermions supporting non-local zero-energy Majorana-like edge excitations. The construction draws intuition from an approach of targeted dissipative cooling into topologically non-trivial states. The model has an exactly solvable line, on varying the density of fermions, described by a topologically non-trivial ground state wave-function. We characterize its thermodynamic and topological properties. Knowledge of the ground state wavefunction allows us to construct analytically number conserving braiding operators, which are exponentially localized at the edges.

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Sebastian Diehl, ITP Cologne
TP seminar room 0.03
Contact: not specified